Posted
by
BeauHDon Monday March 21, 2016 @02:21PM
from the benefit-the-greater-good dept.

jones_supa writes from an article on ABCNews: More than 40 millionaires, including members of the Rockefeller and Disney families, are asking to have their taxes raised to help address poverty and rebuild failing infrastructure. The millionaires wrote a letter to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and top New York lawmakers proposing new, higher tax rates for the top 1% of earners in the state. The letter says that additional revenue would help addressing child poverty, homelessness and aging bridges, tunnels, water pipes and roads. "As New Yorkers who have contributed to and benefited from the economic vibrancy of our state, we have both the ability and the responsibility to pay our fair share," the letter states. "We can well afford to pay our current taxes, and we can afford to pay even more." The tax plan, known as the one-percent tax plan, was worked out in conjunction with the Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-leaning economic think tank.

It is not fundamentally hypocritical to follow the rules as they exist and simultaneously advocate that the rules be changed. This fallacy is what gets trotted out on Fox every time Warren Buffet says the same thing.

It's like calling someone a hypocrite if they advocate for pot legalization, but don't smoke up. There's nothing hypocritical about this position at all.

Actually they are. For example Warren Buffet, while saying his taxes should be raised in political venues, in real life dodges taxes. He is dodging inheritance taxes by transferring money to the Gates foundation. Why? Because he thinks Bill and Melinda can more effectively use his money to address social issues than the government, that they will do more "good" per dollar.

Wrong. It is absolutely hypocritical to act against one's publicly professed ideals and goals. He says one thing, does something else, its hypocritical. That it is legal or common changes nothing.

Except you're talking about two different things.

Governments have the power to tax everyone. The Gates Foundation does not.

Even if Buffet believes the Gates Foundation is more effective at solving social problems than the government, it does NOT follow that he thinks the government is TOTALLY incapable of solving social problems -- just perhaps less efficient.

He can therefore both contribute his own money to the place he thinks will do good most efficiently (but which has no taxation power over his super-rich buddies) while ALSO arguing that his super-rich buddies (and himself) should be forced to contribute to a less efficient organization to still further the same goals.

That's not hypocrisy. If he believes the Gates Foundation is actually more effective than the government (but the government is still somewhat effective), it's actually the most effective and moral way to further his goals.

To recommend something that contradicts his actions, paying more in taxes, something that generates less "good" per dollars does not make sense...

Unless it's the only way to pry the money from the fingers of scrooge-like billionaires who don't want to voluntarily give up their money to charity. Again, government taxes can compel them to, while private charities can't. So it's much better than nothing, as long as it's still working in the right direction (according to Buffett's ideology, anyway).

unless there are ulterior motives. Perhaps furthering his political party is worth a little "less" social good in his mind, or it is good business sense to be known as the "good" wall street'er and have a seat at the political table in this era of increased reform and regulation.

I have no doubt that he gains various benefits from most deals he strikes. On the other hand, one of those benefits may be satisfaction in altruistic acts.

You're working too hard here to demonize him. Sure, he's a rich guy and probably has all sorts of motives. But your insistence that he is hypocritical for giving to one charity for social good and ALSO wanting to force other rich people to give their money to government for social good... well, I really don't get how that's supposed to be hypocrisy.

Is he "dodging" taxes or putting his money where it can do more good? I put a lot of money into charities and it is absolutely not because it reduces taxes. If the only goal was to reduce taxes then charities are a very dumb way to do that because you spend so much more than you get back as a deduction. I treat the charitable deduction as a form of matching funds (charity gets $1 but I only spend $0.66 or so).

I'd argue that's not hypocritical at all. Ultimately capitalism depends on self-interest to function. What is ridiculous is to tell people not to make use of every advantage available to them. What's far more important is to make sure that the rules that we all play by maximize the benefit to society as a whole.

It's not hypocritical for a sports team to advocate changing an unfair rule, even if they follow it and benefit by it.It's not hypocritical for a white man to support diversity in tech yet accept a tech job with female/minority applicants.It's not hypocritical for a company to advocate for increased environmental standards in their industry while following the existing standards.

I'd argue that's not hypocritical at all. Ultimately capitalism depends on self-interest to function. What is ridiculous is to tell people not to make use of every advantage available to them.

Hypocrisy has nothing to do with legality or common. The later does not undo the former.

What's far more important is to make sure that the rules that we all play by maximize the benefit to society as a whole.

It is hypocritical to demonstrate by deed that more benefit for society is obtained by private organizations while simultaneously calling for more taxation in a political stunt. The non-hypocrital action would be to call for more public donations to trustworthy private organization doing social good.

It's not hypocritical for a sports team to advocate changing an unfair rule, even if they follow it and benefit by it.

Following the rules are mandatory in this scenario, not optional as in the Buffet case.

It's not hypocritical for a white man to support diversity in tech yet accept a tech job with female/minority applicants.

For example Warren Buffet, while saying his taxes should be raised in political venues, in real life dodges taxes. He is dodging inheritance taxes by transferring money to the Gates foundation.

We should put a stop to that. And to all charitable deductions from taxes. After all, every dollar that one thoughtlessly tithes to a church or donates to a 501(c)(3) is money that can't be passed on to heirs, and therefore is being greedily ripped away from the reach of the estate tax by the 83% of Americans that give to charity.

It is not fundamentally hypocritical to follow the rules as they exist and simultaneously advocate that the rules be changed.

It is fundamentally hypocritical to follow the rules to avoid paying taxes, and then say that they, and everyone else like them, are not paying enough.

It's like calling someone a hypocrite if they advocate for pot legalization, but don't smoke up.

Nope. It's like calling for the criminalization of pot because it is bad for everyone yet continuing to smoke themselves. Or calling for higher taxes on cigarette users because it is bad for everyone and continuing to smoke.

It would not be hypocritical for a 1%er to say that he thinks his taxes are too low and to voluntarily pay more. It would be ethically n

Because these are people who inherited their wealth (which is not taxed as income) and earn most of their new wealth through investments (also not taxed as income if capital gains) who are proposing raising INCOME TAX on upper middle class people who work for a living...not that I rtfa, but this is the game that has been played for the past 40 years by these people, so don't expect them to change their tune.

Because these are people who are proposing raising INCOME TAX on upper middle class people who work for a living...not that I rtfa, but this is the game that has been played for the past 40 years by these people, so don't expect them to change their tune.

I know reading the fabulous article is passe, but you might want to try it from time to time. For example, had you rtfa you would have noticed that the tax increased don't kick in unless you make more than $655k per year. If that is your idea of an upper middle class income, I would love to have you for an employer. I'd be rich.

But hey, it's not like we can expect you to be informed just because the article is conveniently linked in the header these days.

Median income nationally is close to $25k per person / $50k per household. Median home price nationally is close to $200k.

A "median-equivalent" income in terms of purchasing power somewhere like SF, where median homes cost $1M, would thus be more like $125k per person / $250k per household.

Except that housing is usually only around half the cost of living, and the rest of the cost of living doesn't scale proportional to the cost of housing (food and gas don't cost 500% as much in SF as they do nat

Historically that is how rich folk addressed various social and public issues. And it continues today, look at Warren Buffet. He is dodging the inheritance tax by transferring wealth to the Gates foundation, believing that Bill and Melinda can more effectively spend his money to benefit society than the US government can. His "raise my taxes" talk is just a political stunt.

Given they're trying to speak on behalf of many others that like as not don't feel as they do, it seems disingenuous. Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.

Hi. Your argument is incredibly stupid. As a society, you need to determine what is important and then come together as a group to get it done. Saying "oh, if you feel it is important, pay for it, if you don't then you don't have to" falls apart rather quickly. Infrastructure is a common good that all of society should pay for and those who lack the moral compass to realize that they should help pay for it should not be let off the hook. Ultimately, a donation system is not going to pay for our roads...

That argument is often used to rationalize paying for Infrastructure with regressive sales taxes. And because such taxes are not proportional to usage, we end up consuming more [wikipedia.org] infrastructure than necessary, costing us more in taxes and environmental harm than we would otherwise pay.

The intent isn't actually to likely persuade anything to happen outside of something important: discussion. One or two people giving away, say, 20% more of their net worth hardly does anything and the case can easily be made that if doing X action doesn't meet Y result then find a better action.

Governments are not allowed to take donations, and many (if not all) of the issues addressed are Government issues. Governments take in money from taxes, so the only way for governments to get more money is to raise taxes.

Governments are not allowed to take donations, and many (if not all) of the issues addressed are Government issues. Governments take in money from taxes, so the only way for governments to get more money is to raise taxes.

Oh, bullshit. When I was single there were a few times when I had a $5 or $10 refund due from the IRS, and I simply wrote on the return "please deposit my refund in the general fund". Never heard from them again about it.

You are free to give as much to the US or any state or local government as you want. They don't want that - they want to give other people's money away.

Given they're trying to speak on behalf of many others that like as not don't feel as they do, it seems disingenuous. Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.

Nothing disingenuous with stating your own opinion that you'd be ok with higher taxes. The operating assumption of most politicians, especially in the GOP, is that "TAXES ARE EVIL!", so if you remind them that not everyone feels that way (at least if taxes are going to a good purpose), that's your right as a citizen. Feel free to disagree and write your own letter, but in the case of these millionaires, they wanted to point out that the assumption that all rich people don't want tax increases is wrong.

While you can write a check to the Treasury if you really felt like it, its a bit moot if there isn't an accompanying budget. What is preferable is that a tax rate is set that funds a certain budget with a set of priorities, so you know for sure that the law requires your extra tax money go to pay for education, roads, etc., rather than going into a US Treasury slush fund that is used for who knows what, including probably tax rebates for corporations that don't need them. The letter is not just asking for tax increases, but asking for a budget that prioritizes these services and raises taxes as a way to pay for it.

The former don't care about higher taxes precisely *because* they generate economic value. If you take their money, it will go to teachers, police, etc, and will eventually filter through the economy to someone who wants to buy more Shaw carpet or Acme brick. What the tax man taketh from Warren Buffet, a slightly wealthier poor and middle class give back.

Meanwhile, if you're "lucky", if you got your fortune because you were in the right place at the right time, knew the right hands to shake and palms to grease, taxing them takes away the money forever. It isn't coming back.

So when you see the rich say we need higher taxes, it's usually people who actually generate value, and the ones who complain about higher taxes are usually the leeches on society.

Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.

There is a risk of depending on volunteer donations for infrastructure and basic services. During slumps, people are obviously going to give less. That means basic services take a big hit during bad times when they are needed most.

I had a similar complaint about Ron Paul's volunteer-based healthcare plan.

It also means the economy slows way down during slumps as the giving shrinks and reduces paychecks, exacerbating

That depends upon how you define the 1%. If you use top 1% of "earners" where earners means earned income subject to income tax then the majority of the top 1% actually do make most of their money from their paychecks. From the very beginning nearly 8 years ago this whole sounding the drums to raise income tax on the "top 1%" has been a ploy by the wealthy investor class to raise taxes on highly paid upper middle class professionals rather than themselves.

Plus rich people are smart, you don't cash in the stock --- you do things like take a loan against the stock.

Oh, my. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm sure somewhere at some point you read about some rich person 'taking a loan against their stock'. But I think you misunderstand why they do that. A CEO of a company might want to cash out (for whatever reason), but doesn't want to make it look like he is bailing out on his company. Or somebody has stock that has a sell restriction on it. Because, you see, there isn't a good TAX reason to take a loan against the stock. You have to pay that loan back, with interest. How do you pay the loan back? With... wait for it... MONEY! That money has to come from somewhere. Probably from, oh, I don't know, selling some stock? Which generates a taxable gain. So they haven't avoided any taxes at all.

Or you don't sell a building --- you sell the company that owns the building --- thus no real estate transaction occurred.

[face-palm] Wow. Just... wow. You do realize that the building is part of the value of the company. And you will be taxed on the gain of the value of the company. So, unless they plan to sell the company at a loss, I don't see how they avoid paying taxes. Again. As far as property taxes go, that only helps the purchaser of the company/building. It in no way helps the seller, because they no longer own the building. Obviously.

Corporation account and wealthy people accounting is in an entirely different dimension.

Or somebody has stock that has a sell restriction on it. Because, you see, there isn't a good TAX reason to take a loan against the stock. You have to pay that loan back, with interest. How do you pay the loan back? With... wait for it... MONEY! That money has to come from somewhere. Probably from, oh, I don't know, selling some stock? Which generates a taxable gain. So they haven't avoided any taxes at all.

Your understanding is also flawed. If you have enough stock, you don't need to repay loan during your lifetime. When you die, the loan is repaid from your estate. Crucially, this repayment happens before estate taxes are paid.

So, yes, there is a way to avoid paying taxes on stocks that you receive, even though you were able to turn the stocks into cash.

There's already a spot on tax forms to contribute more if you like. The Rockefeller's in particular, and the Disney family is in bed with them don't actually want their taxes raised, because they can silently raise them all by themselves with that one little blank on the tax form and send in all they want. (we'll ignore the fact many of them have bought personal loopholes that eliminate or greatly reduce their taxes for now) They want to hinder the nouveau riche from reaching their level and to install multiple levels of glass ceilings to keep people from breaking into the next bracket and becoming competition.

If you've got someone else who's got a lot of money - even if it's not as much as you have - the price of bribing your favorite politician goes up.

The motive here isn't to help those of use struggling to make it, it's to make sure more people are struggling.

Giving my money to charity means I have freely let go of my funds in order to try and make the world a better place. Crying for more taxes is essentially saying "You! Over there, with the guns! Point them at us and make us turn over our goods to you!"

Baby boomers are retiring and the workforce is shrinking in the next 20+ years. Social Security and Medicare will consume two-thirds of the federal budget. Taxes will have to go way up to pay for everything else.

If you collect more taxes, how much of that will go to things you want to have fixed and not for things like bombs and oil subsidies. I would think if you had money and you see a problem you could more easily direct that money to the problem yourself. I mean, the roads and bridges in and around Disney World are pretty nice.

that's because these people make money from tax free government bonds, not wages. higher taxes mean governments can buy more bonds to fix stuff which means the rich people who support this will give them the bond money in return for tax free income for themselves and make money.

It seems not one poster here considered that they see they are capable of paying more and not being harmed BUT they know they can't solve all of those problems unless their fellow millionaires who are equally capable of paying but not equally willing kick in their part.

Whether a Rockefeller or Disney heir pays higher taxes hardly matters to them, given how rich they are, so talk is cheap for them. But their fortunes aren't enough to address our budget problems. In fact, the decreasing infrastructure spending is not due to low taxes, but crowding out of all other spending by interest and entitlement programs.

A second problem, though, is that most of this spending shouldn't be federal to begin with. Road infrastructure should largely be paid for by local and state taxes. And federal entitlement programs simply aren't helping people because they are badly designed and badly administered; throwing more money at them won't fix those problems; and if you fix federal entitlement programs, they won't need more money, since we are already spending a lot more than other countries.

a lot of these people don't make money from jobs, they get it from investments and family trust funds that buy up housing for them to live in for free. and they own a lot of property. dividends and investments are taxed at lower rates than income. unless they raise the dividend tax rates or get rid of tax benefits in tax free municipal bonds these people are blowing hot air and simply taxing others to make money for themselves
calling for higher taxes on income means newly successful people pay more and have a harder time buying their own property and moving up creating a class of royalty.
this is how it works in NYC. they reduce income taxes by a pittance but the property taxes keep going up which means rents go up and higher rents mean higher property taxes and profits for the landowners.

There is a fundamental difference between someone who has a lot of money, and someone who is making a lot of money. Someone with $10B in assets is a billionaire, and fits this "1% club", but they may only be in the upper 20% in annual TAXABLE INCOME.

And yet they're perfectly willing to tell the state to tax people whose incomes are higher than theirs. Heck, it protects them from people getting into that top 1% assets club too fast..

The multiple comments of 'they could donate if they wanted to' demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of how important it is for society to work together to achieve goals. No wonder America is so messed up.

Competition is why. Think about it. If `everyone` has to pay, the playing field is level. This is what Warren Buffet has been explaining tirelessly for decades. So yeah, this question goes in the "answered a long time ago" bucket.

Then they shouldn't say "We can well afford to pay our current taxes, and we can afford to pay even more." They should make it clear that they also want to take from other people who have not signed on to their cause. But they never do. It's always this altruistic "Oh, we can pay more."
So yeah, your answer goes in the "non-responsive to the actual situation" bucket.

First, you are the government's master, or can be if you want to be. Pay attention when public opinion really swings against something. They jump through their asses like their anuses are on fire. Second, you owe an amount that covers how you benefit. And there's the rub. People want a one-to-one direct correlation they can follow, like a lunch bill. They don't consider what they don't see or don't see directly connected. But, for example, the state department and the defense department make the world safe

It is. Fortunately that is now what they are saying. They are not asking for an opportunity to individually pay ore taxes. They are asking fr a collective arrangement in which all rich people pay more taxes.

This is not hard t comprehend. We organize a party and everybody chips in for a keg of beer, but once again we ran out of beer halfway through the party, so someone suggests: how about if we all chip in more money and we buy two kegs of beer?

And then some idiot (namely you) interjects and says "well you can always pay more if you want", ignoring the obvious fact that the proposal only works if everyone chips in.

These same people, who get most of the spending pay nothing. The need is not for the worth to donate. The need is to force the scrounging rich to pay up.

You are very misguided....

From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.

From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.

Of course, in the US the top 1% own 40% of the countries wealth, and the top 10% own somewhere around 80%.

From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.

Let's look at your first claim: the top 10 percent pays 53.3% of all federal taxes. This seems to suggest that they pay more than "their share" of taxes, right? Well, there's not sufficient data in your post to come to that conclusion. To demonstrate, consider this thought problem. If the top 10 percent makes 90 percent of the income (they don't, but hypothetically, if they did), an entirely flat non-progressive system of taxation would have them paying 90% of the federal tax burden. Not 10%. So, what we need to know is what percentage of income goes to the top 10%. If it were 53.3% of the income, then we'd have an effectively flat non-progressive system of taxation. If it's greater than 53.3%, we'd actually have a regressive tax system. If it's less than 53.3%, then we'd have a progressive system. In reality, based on a cursory web search, it seems that the top 10% make roughly 30% of the income. This suggests that we do indeed have a progressive system of taxation, and that the rich pay more than "their share" of taxes. However, your post did not contain sufficient data to support such a conclusion. Furthermore, it may have exaggerated the degree to which our tax system is progressive.

Disclaimer: This is a single look into a single data point, and taxation is a complex issue. Our tax code is progressive, but not progressive enough to prevent unchecked growth in wealth stratification.

[You need to visit the IRS web site to see the actual numbers, but when I last did it in 2012, the data was as shown here.]

In 2008, for example, the top.1% earned 9.96% of the income, and the top 1% earned 20.00% of the income, the top 10% earned 45.77% of the income, while the bottom 50% earned 12.75% of the income (cry about income inequality later).

[I first wrote this in 2012, so the "In the last year for which data is available" is wrong, and I could take the time to update the numbers, but the picture painted will not change...]

In the last year for which data is available, 2008, the highest marginal tax rate was 35%. This rate was paid on AGI above $357,700. Certainly someone with AGI over that value is in the well-to-do category, but may not be "millionaires and billionaires" (OTOH Mr. Obama seems to think income of $250,000 equates to "millionaire", but this is immaterial to my point). According to the IRS, the number of returns that were in this highest marginal rate was 971,510. So there's nearly a million households in this country that are, at least by the IRS bracket definition, "rich". Not too shabby, it seems the USA is indeed the land of opportunity.

According to the IRS, the cumulative amount of AGI subjected to this highest rate was $622,765,389,000, so let's round up to $622.8B. The taxes generated on this money is therefore $218B (the IRS reported $217,967,886,000). The overall effective rate for these returns (taxes paid / income) was 28.9%.

Let's assume for a moment (no matter how unrealistic the assumption is) that no one affected would change a lick of their income-generating behavior as a result if we raised the top marginal rate to 100%. How much revenue would that generate? Why, all of $622.8B, if no one modified their behavior in any way that affected their income and tax impact. That is, it would generate an additional $404.8B in revenue relative to the current 35% bracket.

If you added that $404B to the revenue pot, our deficit this year would still be over $1T...

According to this website (https://billionairemailinglist.com/billionaires-list.html), there are 490 billionaires in the US in 2016. Topping the list is Bill Gates, at $78B, followed by Warren Buffett at $65.6B. At the bottom is Fred Chang, Newegg.com Founder - online retailer of computer hardware and software, with a measly $1B.

If you confiscated every penny of their collective wealth, it would not fund the US government for about 6 months. Their collective wealth is $2.273T, while the US government spe

It is very scary to consider what is going to happen to that number when rates go back to a normal level - maybe 3% above current depressed rates. Three or four years from now that interest number could exceed $1T.

There are only three line items over $500B a year: pensions (including SS), health care (including Medicaid and Medicare) and defense. Your "half a trillion" is a fairy tale. I didn't watch your video, because there's always a conspiracy theory to back up any contention. If we were spending almost as much on welfare for immigrants as we spend on Defense everyone would know it, not just the people who watch certain YouTube videos.

I suppose a millionaire can opt to give money to fix roads and bridges via their tax returns. The problem with this solution is a sort of prisoner's dilemma though; you need everybody to participate with commensurate participation, or the volunteerism simply doesn't work. This is probably why they want to see the solutions codified in the tax code rather than be voluntary.

It's not that easy because they probably don't employ that many people directly. (This is also why it's kinda stupid to call them "job creators"). Businesses are legally and financially separate entities. The business pays the employees, not the business owners.

Raising taxes means taxes are raised for their competitors as well. If they just raised the employee salaries and their competitors don't then their competitors can get an advantage over them.

Then there is the crazy aspect of accounting. Where employee salaries are categorized differently than taxes. As well for the Share Holders they show a big booming company for taxes they show a poor nearly bankrupt company.

Paradoxically, raising taxes is not likely to increase revenue. The higher taxes are, the harder people try to avoid them. Techniques include such things as deferring income, hiding income, leaving the country and changing citizenship. A favorite of people like the Clintons is to put money into their tax-exempt foundation, and then having the foundation pay for nearly all of their living expanses.

Furthermore, old-money millionaires don't care what the income tax rate is. They've got their bundle and can liv

high taxes on income reduce or remove the incentive to produce and innovate. The country as a whole loses with high taxes, and that affects everyone. The longer the time ovre which this phenomenon is examined, the more obvious it is.

Really? tell that to Sweden, Norway,Denmark and Finland.. High wages, high taxes, higher standard of life and much happier nations:-)

"happiness" and "standard of living" are things that get reduced to meaningless statistics spun to support whatever agenda is on tap.

They fail to capture the things like lack of central heating and high electricity costs that drive people to use pellet driven space heaters that would make American trailer trash chuckle.

The stuff in bold is to highlight what absolutely serious bullshit you just uttered. https://healthmanagement.org/c... [healthmanagement.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
They have a better health care which is paid through taxes. now while private healthcare is also available , which gives choice, the state healthcare there is top notch and for you to suggest otherwise is either blatant ignorance or wilful ignorance or.. just disingenuous.
BTW you do realise that they have central heating in abundance.. oh and electricity is CHEAPER in Sweden, for example, than the USA
Basic (Electricity, Heating, Water, Garbage) for 85m2 Apartment 148.31 $ (1,221.12 kr)(USA) 86.48 $(712.04 kr) (SWE) -41.69 %
-41.69% cheaper....
so how are you trailer trash chuckling now at paying nearly 42% more than those pesky Scandinavians?
If you are going to make a statement about something , make sure your argument cannot be humped with very very very very little effort....

My cynical side thought instead that they were volunteering to pay a slightly higher rate than they are now rather than risking the legislature impose an even higher rate. For example if they knew the legislature was considering making them pay 20% but they preempt the legislature by publicly offering to pay 15%, it would appear to some in the court of public opinion that the lawmakers were being jerks if they pushed for an even higher rate later.
So it's not that Hell froze over, it's that they figured ou

this is for income taxes stupid. most of these people make most of their income from dividends and other non-salary income which is taxed at much lower rates and i don't see anything about taxing it at higher rates.
this is a tax on the newly uppity former poor people who made it out of rags and moving into neighborhoods they shouldn't be moving into.

Wrong. they need everyone to pay more so that they can contribute more without giving their competition an advantage. They want to pay more AND they want to maintain a level playing field AND they don't want to be sued by stock holders.

Another commentator have a point. If only one company doing this it would be at a commercial disadvantage in relation to other companies. Would only work if all companies have to pay the same amount more and and thus maintain the competitive balance

More than 40 millionaires, including members of the Rockefeller and Disney families, are asking to have their taxes raised to help address poverty and rebuild failing infrastructure.

What's preventing them from sending more money to the government now? A trivial Internet-search immediately returns a link to the government site [treasurydirect.gov], which explains, how donations of cash or securities can be made to any Federal government agency...

Anybody, actually wishing to pay more taxes himself, can already do that. The only reason to make noise about it is to force someone else to pay more.

So, by your rationale (if I may use such a malapropism), we should simply get rid of taxes and fund the government on a donation system. Or, we could do the sensible, civilised thing and have a progressive tax rate where people pay their fair share so we can live in a civilised society where I don't have to worry about being poisoned or have a bridge collapse on me.

I think that millionaire is still in line with the idea I have of it : someone successful but not beyond my imagination, someone that can travel first class and go to 5-star hotels. A billionaire is someone who has maxed out his purchasing power and has at least state-level influence.